Chapter XVI

“Dario! I'm so glad you could make it!” Emylas said when he greeted him at the door.

“I told you, I wanted to know what a professor of religious studies actually thinks of the world's religions.”

As Dario walked in the room, he realized that he truly stood out, wearing his black armor and carrying his grey-steel sword. The other men and women in the room were clad in academic robes, or even simpler clothes. Certainly none of the rest of them were armed.

Everyone in the room sat reclined on cushions and pillows, and all of the walls were covered with red and gold curtains. Lit candles lined end tables throughout the room, each flame causing the shadows in the room to dance.

“Take a seat wherever you wish,” said Emylas. Once Dario had claimed one of the cushions on the floor, Emylas began his teaching. “Having studied all the world's religions I have found a common theme, an interesting one. Each religion seeks to establish order. It makes the assumption that a state of order is the best possible state, then, acting on this assumption proposes ideas of how best to achieve order.”

Emylas began to pace the room. “It proposes a set of laws and rules that we are to follow that we might achieve order. The Agalmites have the Law, Nihilites are taught to refrain from worldly things and idolatry, the Bear-Worshipers of Shadia are taught respect for the natural order of death and rebirth, as well as a reverence for strength and courage. The Subrans and Saburans who worship their ancestors are taught to uphold family honor, that dedication to one's ancestors and their legacy is the best possible form of order. The Western Gods each have their own sets of rules. Then the Cult of the Mother and Father teaches a dichotomy of justice and mercy.

“Each religion seeks order, and each one declares wrong the others' vision of what order should be. 'Only those who believe in my faith's form of order is correct.' Often, these religions will declare evil one of two groups: either those whose form of order is directly opposed, or those who are perceived as having no form of order at all, those associated with chaos.” Emylas emphasized the word “chaos” as if it were, in itself, a joke. No one was laughing.

“For example; the Agalmites believe that the world is good and therefore the Nihilites who seek to destroy it are called evil. But the Agalmites also called the Kufar tribe evil as well. Few people have read about the Kufar tribe, even devout Agalmites. Do we have any Agalmites present in the room?”

Three of the students raised their hands at this question.

Emylas nodded. “Do any of you remember reading about the Kufar people?”

“I do,” one of the students said.

“What do you remember? Tell us the story.”

“It was back in the days when Erelah, the first prophet was still alive. She had established the Law in Arx, and said that only those who followed the Law could live in Arx. The Kufar tribe refused to leave Arx's mountains, but also refused to follow the Law. Erelah punished them for this by making the mountains swallow them up. She called them our enemies, and punished them for their wickedness.”

“For their wickedness,” said Emylas, pointing at the student. “Notice that phrasing: for their wickedness. Or rather, for not following the Law. For their lawlessness. Because they embraced chaos instead.”

Dario had to nod along with this. He'd long thought the Agalmite faith was severely flawed for this reason, among others.

“Chaos, as the religions call it. Freedom, as some might say. The freedom to seek after one's own will. This is the form of evil that all religions agree upon. Man's most basic instincts must be curbed. Why? Because man is bad!” Emylas mocked the idea with his tone, mimicking a petulant child. “Humankind is so very very naughty! People cannot be left to simply seek after the desires of their own flesh, their flesh tempts them to do evil. Religion teaches that you,” Emylas pointed an accusing finger at Dario, “are evil, but if you follow our laws you will be good, and the Divine Daddy won't have to beat you anymore.”

Dario curled up his nose in disgust, and was about to say something in defense of the Father.

But Emylas raised his hands, and in a gust of wind every candle in the room was extinguished. For a moment, not even the smallest voice, only the scent of smoke filled the total blackness of the room.

Then Emylas spoke again. His voice almost a whisper. “Why do we fear the dark? Why do children fear the darkness? Why do even adults tremble when blackness surrounds them?” Dario heard a rattling sound on his right side, and his heart jumped for a moment, until he realized that was his own armored forearm shaking.

“Most would say that it is because of what may be hiding in the darkness, but I say this is only the smallest part of it,” said Emylas, his voice still barely above a whisper. “Darkness is no different from silence or stillness. What do you do when lying awake at night, in that pitch darkness, unable to sleep? What do you do when all sounds around you have ceased, and you are left with the stillness of the night?”

Dario heard Emylas' voice as if he were whispering right into his ear. “What whispers do you imagine in that silence?” But when Dario tried to bat him away he felt nothing there.

Emylas voice resonated from the center of the room again, now far from a whisper. “When confronted with silence, stillness, or darkness all one can do is look within. You hear, touch, and even see your true self when all else is gone. People do not fear predators hiding in the darkness, they fear that it is they, themselves, who hide in the darkness. The monsters that children fear are hiding in the shadows are nothing more than the monsters they believe themselves to be.”

Dario felt like ice-cold fingers were inching their way up the nape of his neck. Even as Emylas spoke Dario could once again see those gray-skinned creatures. He remembered how terrified he'd been after that nightmare, how he didn't feel at all like the brave justicar he was meant to be. He saw creatures that looked terrifying, but why did he feel they were evil? Looking back on it, he saw little reason to assume that these people of Duat were evil, except for the fact that they were living in darkness. It was strange to think that when he feared the gray-skinned people he might have been assuming that they were as wicked inside as he felt he was.

Emylas continued. “Why? Why are people so afraid of themselves? Because they have been taught to be!” Emylas shouted, startling every one of his students. “Because nigh every religion, philosophy, and god in this cosmos has taught us that man’s will is evil, sinful! They offer an external will to which we must submit ourselves or face eternal punishment. They teach us to fear our true selves! Why should we submit ourselves to gods, daemons, or the spirits of the dead? Does the mere fact that they are more powerful than us make them right? Are we to assume that because they have been around for so many thousands of years that they have grown infinitely wise in that time rather than infinitely senile?”

Dario wanted to punch Emylas in the face to silence his blasphemous mouth, but a small part of him had to admit that, in a strange way, there seemed to be some truth in what he was saying. He certainly could think of no good argument against it. It was as if he suddenly couldn't remember all of the reasons he believed in the Father in the first place.

“Furthermore,” Emylas went on, “Are we truly so naive as to assume that these spirits do not want something from us in return? After all, we want something from them; whether that's wisdom, salvation, or power. Do we really think that spirits are just trying to help us because they think it's the right thing to do? Because they love us? Or is there some reward that they get when we submit to their will?”

There was a murmuring between the students. Dario could tell that some of the students wished to leave the class, just as he did, but were uncomfortable with the idea of stumbling around in the dark for the door. Dario thought, for just a moment, of running this lunatic through, but the darkness all around him made it all too easy to imagine that some of the other students would draw daggers they'd hidden in their sleeves and kill Dario to defend their professor. Again, Dario knew that these students were probably unarmed, but as his imagination ran wild in the darkness he couldn't shake the feeling that moving against Emylas would not be safe.

“Understand, you will never achieve true satisfaction in your life by submitting your will to that of another,” said Emylas. Judging by the sound of his footsteps he was now walking in circles in the center of the room. “The only way to achieve satisfaction is to work towards what you want, what you desire. Let your will be done! You may be happy right now. Content, even, in your life as a slave to a spirit's will.”

Dario audibly scoffed at this comment, but Emylas did not pause even for a second.

“But you will never be satisfied having not sought the path you most wanted for yourself. You'll be unsatisfied until you cast off the shackles of taboos, ignorance, piety, and someone else's morality. You may be happy following your rules, but you will not be satisfied until you dismiss the Agalmite Law, the Code of the Mother and Father, and the Asceticism of the Nihilites. The spirits want so desperately for you to submit yourselves to their order that they will offer power and salvation in exchange for your service. You are selling your souls into slavery to these spirits in exchange for security. Some religions even call their adherents 'slaves' in their holy texts! Dedicating your life to the service of a spirit in exchange for salvation of the soul is no different from the man who locks himself in shackles in the deepest, darkest dungeon because he is afraid of the world.”

Dario had heard enough. He tried to stand up to leave, but his armor felt heavier than usual. It was as if suddenly it weighed a ton, and he could not force himself to his feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was a prisoner? Trapped in this dark room listening to this madman rant?

“It is not you who should serve the spirits, but rather the spirits who should serve you!” Dario felt Emylas' finger on his chest. Wait, on his chest? He was wearing a breast-plate, was he not? How could Emylas make contact with his skin? Dario raised a hand to bat away Emylas' arm, but again felt nothing there but air.

“Have the spirits shown themselves able to act without mortal agents in the world? No, they are impotent without their mortal representatives. The Agalmite God has always acted through prophets, priests, and chosen monarchs. The Nihilite daemons have always worked through Aeons, soothsayers, witches, and warlocks. The Ancestral Spirits need a Bokor to summon them, otherwise they can do nothing to the world. The Inquisition summoned angels to fight on their behalf, but the angels would not act without their call. The spirits need our faith and our action in order to do anything. They can do nothing for themselves, this is why they impose their laws on us and seek our religious devotion.”

Emylas patted Dario on the shoulder. Again, Dario felt the hand on his shoulder, not on the shoulder plate of his armor. He couldn't explain it other than to think that Emylas had some sort of bizarre power. “Therefore do as you wish, and only do what any spirit requests of you in exchange for that spirit’s help in achieving your own goals. Make the gods pray to you!”

Dario thought back to the very reason he'd become a justicar in the first place. He was hoping to destroy the slave trade in order to free his sister. Since he'd been a justicar he had been hurting the slave trade just a little at a time, chipping away at it. But he'd not been permitted to seek out his own sister, all because of some higher concept of justice and the greater good that barely made sense to him at the moment. No, every man was not his brother and every woman was not his sister. Cilicia was his sister. Dario had gone into St. Archor's Abbey with the understanding that the Father would help him achieve what he wanted, but had instead become a slave to whatever the Father wanted.

“Some of you fear that if you defy the will of your gods then the gods will punish you. I say you have nothing to fear. If you work towards achieving your own power and learn to be strong on your own then in time whatever angels or demons come your way you will be able to defeat with your own will. What’s more, you can bargain with a spirit for ever-lasting life. Yes, even eternal salvation can still be yours, for there are spirits who would willingly trade immortality for your services, especially as you become more powerful in your own right. Aside from that, it is entirely possible you may find a way to save your own soul, and does not the prospect of creating your own idea of paradise sound so much better than spending eternity in another’s idea of paradise?

“And I know that some of you believe that power comes only from gods and demons. After all, are not nigh all practitioners of magic also sworn to the solemn service of a god of some sort? Well, most are, yes. However, magic comes from within, not without, as most religions would have you believe. There have been cases of members of different religions retaining their abilities long after they left the faith. Inquisitors retained the magic they knew while serving the Inquisition, and even after some left they retained their magic. Priests of pagan gods have retained their powers long after ceasing to serve those gods. There have even been stories of some geomancers who did not follow the Agalmite faith at all. Magic comes from faith, but that faith can be in yourself just as easily as it can be in a spirit.”

Dario was, at this point, wrestling with himself. He'd dedicated himself to destroying the slave trade, but for the power to do so had he not made himself essentially a slave to a master more powerful than the Vice Queen? Had he helped propagate a form of slavery far worse than the one he sought to destroy? No, he could not believe his life's work was a lie, but between the darkness and Emylas' charismatic rant he found himself unable to remember all of the reasons why he believed. Why he was certain his choice was right.

“So, let us recap,” said Emylas. “You have great power within yourself that you are barely even aware of. Spirits come along and claim that the power you have within you is minor, and that they can help you achieve something far greater. Because you don't know better, you submit your faith, the very source of your magic, to the will of the spirit, making the spirit more powerful as it leeches off of you.”

The candles were aflame again, though there was no sign of match or flint. The shadows around the room seemed to be different this time. The light from the candles, now enclosed in glass lanterns, shown on the walls in patterns of triangles.

Emylas pointed to the triangles of light. “They sap the light from you, here, at the bottom, and carry it up to the top. They declare anything outside of this,” Emylas gestured to the shadows and the other triangle patterns on the walls, “Anything out here to be evil. Notice, there is far more darkness than there is light. The spirits have done a good job of containing the magic, gaining a monopoly over it.”

Emylas walked around to the back of the room and started removing the lanterns from the candles once again. “If you decide you will no longer submit to the will of spirits anymore in time you will see that your light shines brighter than its ever shown.” With all of the lanterns removed, and the candles burning free, the only shadows on the walls were the shadows of the people in the room. “And then you will see your true self. Then you will come to grips with your own shadow, the parts of you that you most dislike, not the parts of yourself that the spirits teach you to dislike. Only then will you be able to change yourself for the better, in a way that you will be satisfied with who you are. At that point, you become your own god, your own judge.”

It was no wonder that Emylas chose to teach in the West, Dario thought. The West was such a melting pot for different faiths, philosophies, and ways of thought that he felt he had no fanatics to fear. Religious freedom had long been important to the West, even under Arxian control. Still, even in the West these occultic ideas were downright dangerous to espouse. Now more than ever Dario was curious what this strange man had to do with the creatures living underground. What was the connection between Dario's nightmare, the legend of Duat, the wound on Dario's arm, and this strange religious studies professor who preached such radical ideas?

“However, if you find what I said today too heretical, blasphemous, radical, or dangerous then you are certainly welcome to back out at this time, but know that you will forever be left wondering if there was any truth to what I said today. From now on you will look upon the spirits you worship with suspicion. Every time they give you a command you will ask 'why?' and wonder what the spirit gains from your obedience. If you believe me wrong and think you can be satisfied never knowing then by all means, you are welcome to try to silence my words in your mind whenever you find yourself in the darkness or the stillness, with only the sound of your heartbeat to serve as a distraction from what you see within.”